


The Hollow Rabbit

by ThePsuedonym



Category: Clarence (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Character Death, Complete, Disability, Don't Have to Know Canon, Episode AU: s01e18 Average Jeff, Gen, May be depressing to some readers, Misleading/Unassuming Summary, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Canonical Dog, Past Character Death, The Author Doesn't Know Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePsuedonym/pseuds/ThePsuedonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarence had a dog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hollow Rabbit

**Author's Note:**

> Resistance became futile by the third ( _third!_ ) time the tagged episode had played near me. (I don't even like the show, either.)
> 
> The dog is an American Alsatian. The title was lifted from this post: english.stackexchange. com/questions/71398/common-phrases-for-something-that-appears-good-but-is-actually-bad

_Normally, Jeff wouldn’t have allowed himself to become so wound up, but in this instance he blamed the circumstances for his unusual behavior, for his frustration, his anxiety. But not fear. Never fear._

_“I want a better life than them!” His control slipped and his volume rose up into a shout, a dial turned to the right._

_He was a terrible liar._

_Ms. Baker looked at him; she really_ looked _at him, scrutinizing, her eyes narrowed and stern and sad – no, not sad._

_Disappointed._

_He knew well enough what that expression was, having hung around with the crowd he did – and they weren’t bad, just… rambunctious, that was a good word – even if that look had rarely been turned onto him._

_While it would normally work, here and now it made no difference, there was no stinging shame; he couldn’t be a Crayon, he had more potential than that!_

_“Jeff, I want you to think about what you said._

_“Think about what you said._

_“What you said._

_“Jeff.”_

 

“Jeff. Geoffrey. Hey, wake up. You’ve got work to do.” Something large and dark entered his field of vision and the sudden change in light made him flinch back, his distracted attention snapping back into focus just in time to register the irritated grimace on the speaker’s face.

“Sorry,” he automatically apologized, then bit his tongue; it was a habit he had yet to shake and one that was disapproved upon in his field of work, at least when the time came to prove the injustice of another’s actions. Despite himself, his eyes wandered back towards the initial distraction.

Grumbling their irritation, the other employee shoved him aside and out of the elevator. Light enough not to hurt, not really, but still rough enough to keep his attention and move him out of the way of the rest of the firm’s traffic.

He watched the other man walk away – or maybe storm off would be a better descriptor; he had looked rather angry, after all – and wondered if he knew him. Probably in passing, or maybe they were in the same department.

Jeff spared the distraction a last glance before moving on. He still had work to do, after all, and glimpsing back into the past simply wasn’t going to get anything important finished.

 

Somehow, when he had originally come to the conclusion that he wanted to work with the law through employment at a firm back in high school, Jeff hadn’t imagined it would be quite like _this_.

That wasn’t to say it was terrible, no. Everything was fastidiously neat and organized, because otherwise he would have torn his hair out in frustration along with the rest of his co-workers, but the day-to-day tasks were far more tedious and mind-numbing than he had dared to anticipate.

Of course, he wasn’t actually a lawyer, either, only a measly paralegal – and he had great respect for them, of course! How couldn’t he, after all? – but he was just another unimportant man wandering a decently-sized law firm.

Plus, someone had to convert the company’s physical records into the electronic database; it was simply luck of the draw that it had been him.

That and the fact that no one would dare ask one of the secretaries. They were the universally recognized, if unspoken, backbone of the company and _utterly terrifying_ if anyone got on their bad side.

They were like piranhas. Piranhas that swam in swarms and could taste fear.

 

It was because of that aforementioned task that Jeff had travelled onto the firm’s third floor; Mr. Nelson had requested he retrieve some fairly obscure records dated decades ago for one of his elderly and senior clients. It was also the reason he had caught sight of his childhood in corporeal form when the elevator had opened up.

He dropped the folders off and came back around to the elevator well, unable to entirely resist the pull of curiosity. For appearances’ sake he sat down at a table that had an abandoned crate of unmarked files beside it and absently sorted through its contents, putting forth more effort into examining the unexpected Ghost of Christmas Past than into the busywork.

Taller than he remembered, obviously, though a little thinner than he would have initially expected. Still had the same messy bowl cut and those obnoxiously spaced buck teeth, even if one of them was now chipped. And… was that blood?

It was; a banner of war paint smeared across his face in typical defiance against— he didn’t even know, not this time, but Clarence was usually breaking some form of common expectations, even for an open-minded individual like Jeff. It was a behavior so deeply ingrained into him that it was unthinkable to consider that the blond could have changed.

He’d talking, waving his hands about him in regular Clarence-fashion and yet mesmerizing in that naïve, charismatically eager way that had dominated his personality as a child. Jeff forgot about the files entirely, propping his chin on one hand as he watched the boy? man? it seemed entirely too surreal to think of Clarence as anything but the nine-year-old he had last known him as.

Someone rushed by and broke the paralegal’s line of sight, startling him for the second time in twenty minutes. He fussed over the files again and thought about what he had seen.

Not much, admittedly; Clarence, for it was unmistakably him, could be inside one of the firm’s offices for any number of reasons, virtually all of them unrelated to Jeff.

He, he could be married, or something, or divorcing his spouse or even widowed.

Or it could be something beyond the scope of marriage or wills. Suing someone. Being sued. He could be filing taxes, too; there were a few people in the company to do that, somewhere.

It could even be, and for Clarence’s sake he hoped it wasn’t, a criminal case. Undoubtedly a possibility, but Jeff hadn’t heard anything about rapes or murders or even grand theft auto, nor a whisper of a rumor of loitering or shoplifting.

That blood on his face didn’t bode well.

 

An eternity had passed when Clarence left the office he was in, jovially proclaiming he would be back again next week. The person he was visiting, likely a lawyer, said something in return that Jeff didn’t catch because he was preoccupied with staring at the dog.

As a kid, he had always wanted a dog. To him, a dog would have been the best thing ever, an unconditional friend and pillar of support. A measure of responsibility and trust, to care for another and hold their survival in his hands. To be proud as they flourished and grew into themselves, and mourn as they passed on and left a legacy.

Clarence had a dog.

He was an adult, now, but he had a dog.

It simply seemed too big to be allowed, the heavy winter coat it wore exacerbating its size despite the restricting coat-like harness that it wore. The canine glanced at Jeff as it passed by, sizing him up; its demeanor was quite unlike its owner’s, who had clearly stayed more or less the same despite the ravages of time.

And time had not been kind, indeed, as the pieces connected themselves in Jeff’s mind. He looked at his childhood friend again, and yes, there it was; in his left hand was the leash, and in his right he held a white cane, an orange fluorescent ring wrapped above its rubber-capped end.

Clarence was blind.

 

“Is there something wrong?”

He jumped at the voice and turned to face the speaker, words crowding his tongue in an attempt to save face and stop the rumors before they began; he wasn’t a creep!

Mr. Nelson stared calmly back at him, wearing something that looked vaguely like a smile.

He opened his mouth once, closed it, and managed, “No. Everything’s alright, thank you.”

Jeff turned back to the crate, trying to put Clarence and everything that happened since he first saw him out of his mind.

Mr. Nelson had the same face Ms. Baker had.

Sad and disappointed.

 

By the next day Jeff had determined that his boss was a nosy, if crafty old man and far too fond of inserting himself into his subordinates’ business.

He had received a message on his phone to meet Mr. Nelson in his office; normally he would have checked in with the man’s secretary, Julie, and gone down into the basement and to the records’ department.

So when he told Julie that Mr. Nelson had asked for him, she treated him to a shark’s grin that said she knew exactly what the old man was planning and let him through.

His earlier assessment was wrong. Where the rest of the secretaries were piranhas, Julie was a shark and a pack leader.

When he entered, Mr. Nelson was sitting at his desk and methodically sorting through the documents littering its surface into neat piles. The ‘out’ box was already at a respectable level, rising several inches above the edges of its container; the ‘in’ box was empty, its contents likely the regurgitated mess the partner was correcting.

Without looking away from his work, Mr. Nelson said, “Good morning, Mr. Randell. Please, take a seat.”

The paralegal did as he was asked, an undercurrent of nervousness making his limbs shake and his hands reflexively clench. Mr. Nelson, on the other hand, was the picture of serenity, completely untroubled as he pushed his reading glasses up his nose and ignored the twitchy man only feet away.

When what felt like years had passed, but likely only a few minutes, the lawyer broke the silence. “Mr. Randell, I am reassigning you to another department.”

He blinked; that… wasn’t a punishment. It was also completely unexpected. “Sir?”

“Johnathon has received a taxing case yesterday and though he is too proud to admit it, he requires help gathering research and evidence. I would like you to help him.” Mr. Nelson began gathering up the stacks littering his desk and placed them back into the ‘in’ box. “You would know him as Mister Brahms, of course.”

“Okay. Thank you, Mr. Nelson,” he began, but the old man waved it off.

“Just Mark, if you would, and I do believe Johnathon is expecting you.”

 

It was a set up. He wouldn’t realize this until later, but it was a set up.

“I know him,” Jeff said aloud, staring at the top sheet of paper he had been handed by Brahms with an order to familiarize himself with the contents. The lawyer squinted at him with the declaration and the paralegal flushed slightly at the scrutiny.

“You know him?” he repeated.

Jeff nodded. “We attended the same elementary school.”

“But you haven’t seen him since,” Brahms concluded, dipping his head in certainty.

“How did you know?”

“Saw you yesterday, watching him. You aren’t as subtle as you believe you are.”

Casual conversation ceased then, to the paralegal's gratitude and Jeff finished reading the papers he had been given. Unsurprisingly enough, they detailed why Clarence had visited the firm the day before in crisp, frank and impersonal language.

They stated that his home had been burglarized and he had been attacked by the intruder, resulting in the chipped tooth Jeff had seen yesterday, along with several other injuries.

There were no other witnesses to the crime; his mother and stepfather, who had been visiting, had taken the dog out for a walk at the time of the break-in, and he had no nearby neighbors.

His security system had gone off when a window had been broken and the police were still examining the collected evidence.

Very little had been stolen. A fair portion of his cutlery, a spare leash and a few boxes of non-perishable food had been taken, along with some undisclosed documents had been taken and according to Clarence, the last item had been the most important; what information they contained he was reluctant to say.

Jeff wondered what they were, what was so important to his childhood friend that he couldn’t bear to tell anyone else what it was. When they were younger he wouldn’t hesitate to share it – not rub salt into the wound, as some would, but _share_ it with whoever wished to use it. Secrecy simply wasn’t in the other’s nature.

Unless, he realized, it was. They hadn’t seen each other, discounting the day before, considering Clarence hadn’t seen him (and likely never would; the depressing thought brought a slump to Jeff’s shoulders) for nearly twelve years. People changed in less time than that and it was idiotic of him to have expected Clarence wouldn’t be an iota different than he had been as a child, blindness notwithstanding.

And if Brahms wasn’t looking when Jeff set the files down, well, there wasn’t anything to be ashamed about.

He wasn’t crying for Clarence’s sake, or for the lost years between them.

(He was a terrible liar.)

 

Jeff had regained his composure by the time his – _his_! the thought had never crossed his mind, even if it was Brahms leading the case, not him – client had arrived for that day’s appointment.

Brahms’ secretary, Regina Call-Me-Reggie Bulbich buzzed him in with a warning to play nice; it seemed to be a joke between the two of them as Clarence’s laugh carried over the intercom.

The door opened without human interaction and admitted the seeing-eye dog first, with its human following closely behind. Brahms greeted his latest client and subtly directed him into a seat, which Clarence thanked him for, leaning his cane against the furniture. Immediately the dog lay on his feet and fell asleep, soft snores rumbling from its lungs.

“How’s it going Mr. Brahms?” Clarence asked, surprising Jeff. He immediately berated himself for it and forcibly reminded himself that people changed.

“It’s only been a day, Mr. Wendell,” Brahms began, but stopped when the client raised his hand.

“Clarence. I’m Mr. Wendell in court and on stage,” he corrected. Jeff wondered what he meant by the latter half of the statement but didn’t interrupt to ask.

The lawyer made a face that looked to be half-amusement and half-severe-constipation. “In any case, I’ve been assigned an assistant for your case.” He gestured at Jeff.

“Clarence.” He held his hand out, looked at it and cringed at the realization. Before he could pull it back to his side, a larger hand grasped it and squeezed.

“Jeff! It’s good to see you.” His old friend was smiling, completely at ease despite the years between them. “Or, you know, talk. Well, you can see, so it’s great to see you see me! No, wait, I got this–”

“Clarence, it’s fine,” he said, familiar amusement-exasperation-relief rising. At least in terms of personality, the blond hadn’t changed _too_ much, it seemed.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Brahms said to the two of them. Jeff dropped his hand and readied himself to take notes for later consultation. Clarence removed his hand as well and settled them in his lap in an attempt at innocence.

 

Despite his earlier berating and reassurances, sitting down with Clarence was disconcerting. Only part of it, and a small portion at that, was because of the fact that the other man couldn’t see him; Jeff had met people with more obvious disabilities before.

No, it was because his mind kept dredging up memories of who he used to be and making comparisons between the two.

When they were younger, Clarence would hardly be capable of sitting still. That was still true now, as their earlier meeting had proved, but instead of wriggling in his seat or simply taking off to explore the café he had brought them to, Clarence was staring at Jeff.

Well, _relatively_ speaking, of course.

He didn’t seem to have any desire to break the silence between them either, so Jeff cleared his throat. Clarence started slightly at the sound and turned more fully towards the paralegal. “How have you been?”

Not the best start, but still a step up from talking about the weather. Oh, let’s see, _hot_. _Dry_. They were just a few miles away from the second driest city in the United States, what else did he expect?

Clarence, thankfully, wasn’t privy to his internal monologue, and answered, “Great! Mom and Chad are coming by tomorrow and I found you, so it couldn’t be better!”

His voice was a bit strained as he spoke. Jeff decided not to pry further, and instead asked, “How’s Sumo?”

To his surprise, the guide dog lifted its head and stared at him; Clarence clumsily patted it on the head. “Dog-Sumo is named after Human-Sumo. He, uh, that is, Human-Sumo…”

Jeff remembered his friend had hated being the bearer of bad news, and was terrible at breaking it easily. “It’s alright, Clarence, you can tell me.”

The blond’s face scrunched up with an undecipherable emotion. “He was in an accident. I’m sorry, Jeff, but he’s dead.”

 

He didn’t cry. He surprised himself by managing that, but he didn’t cry. It wasn’t because he hadn’t been as close to the wild child as he had been with Clarence, but because the news was so numbing.

Of all of them, Sumo had seemed the most invulnerable, the most immortal. He had already survived his home and his family, both of which were admittedly not the most stringent when it came to children. He had kept a roadrunner as a pet.

Sumo had lived through it all, it had seemed. He was practically a local Evel Knievel for all his stubbornness to survive through life and the insanity that Clarence led them through daily.

Dead. It was surreal.

“How?”

Clarence made a vague, hand-wavy gesture beside his head. “Trying to protect me from this. Didn’t work out that way, but he did his best. Could have been worse.”

“How?”

He sighed and dropped his hand, started messing with the café menu instead. “We went to the same college when we graduated. Not everyone there was considerate as you were, Jeff.” A nice way of saying they were rude, then. “Some of them were upset by either Sumo or I and believed that a correction was in order. I don’t know if it went the way they wanted it to, but this is the way it went.”

Briefly, he considered asking exactly what it was that the crowd in question was so narrow-minded about, but decided not to. It was Sumo’s and Clarence’s business, not his own.

 

As a child, Jeff hadn’t been very fond of sweet foods, especially candies and chocolates. Despite this, he would go out with his parents every Easter to visit his Aunt Cathy and Uncle Frank, who had two kids of their own – twins, a few years younger than him – and they would hunt for eggs.

Every year, once the eggs were collected, they would be given baskets with goodies inside; he himself always received a book in his basket, alongside a chocolate rabbit.

The twins preferred solid chocolate; one year he had offered them the ears off his rabbit; they had accepted and ate them, much to their disappointment.

“It’s hollow!” Sarah had cried out, glaring at the chocolate like it had insulted her parents. Michael had been quick to back her up, adding that the rabbit must have been defective. It ended up devolving into an argument as to whether defective rabbits could be born, and if the chocolate versions were made from real ones, but his cousins’ incredulity had surprised him.

Chocolate was chocolate, after all; wasn’t that fact good enough for them? But he supposed that he understood their indignation now, though the circumstances were wildly different.

In one case, they simply received some hollow chocolate instead of their preferred solid form.

Jeff had lost his friends and never even knew it.

 

A week later, the two were at the same café; the seeing-eye dog was absent from this excursion. When asked about it, Clarence said his mother was taking him for a walk.

“We couldn’t have a dog,” he explained, “so she likes taking Sumo out when she’s around.”

That caught his attention. He had wanted a dog himself, but one of his mothers was allergic to the dandruff and the other wasn’t terribly fond of canines. So, no dogs.

Didn’t keep him from doing research, though.

“What breed is he?”

The blond tapped a finger on the table as he thought. “An Albanian Satin, I think. Something like that. They don’t get startled easily, though.”

Jeff nodded in understanding. That would have been an obvious requirement for someone like Clarence. Even if he'd never heard of the breed before.

“He’s reliable?”

“Of course he is.”

I’m sorry, he didn’t say.

 

Brahms interlocked his fingers and leaned over his desk towards Clarence, despite it being an ultimately futile gesture. “You do know that we need to know what was taken before you can press charges, correct?”

He shrugged one shoulder, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “Is that something that really needs to be discussed? Because I’d really prefer not to.”

“It is. We can’t find something unless we know what we’re looking for, and unless you claim it as yours, the thief can pass it off as theirs without fear of the consequences.”

Clarence grimaced. “I’m really more interested in why they took my spoons. You can’t really hurt someone with a spoon unless you’re creative about it.”

Jeff grinned at the thought, even as he wondered what exactly had happened since he had last seen each other as children to make Clarence think of violence wrought upon another before coming up with something ridiculous and unexpected in equal measures, like hats made of spoons.

Then again, they _were_ talking about him being robbed and assaulted.

“I, uh, write music.”

That… was unexpected. Jeff looked at Brahms, to confirm what he had heard, but the lawyer looked just as confused as he did.

“Songs. And things. I kept them in the file that was stolen. They’re important. I’ve got a contract, and I’ll be dismissed if this falls through.” He cleared his throat, clearly anxious. “They’re pretty understanding about it all, but they won’t think twice about finding someone else.”

“Okay.” That was Brahms, who had recovered first. “Alright. That we can do, just you wait.”

 

Jeff saw Clarence less and less as the case progressed; it seemed counterintuitive, at first, considering he was to help with the judicial work, but he was supposed to help research and strategize their approach.

So after the first month he was relegated back to the record room more often than not, until it was as though he had never left, his services no longer in requirement.

At least until a large dog walked down the aisle and planted itself on his feet.

He stared at the canine for a moment, then lifted his head as its owner determinedly approached him, cane out and searching for obstacles. It poked Jeff’s leg once and Clarence stopped.

“I’m not going to let you go again, Jeff,” he said. It was not spoken as a suggestion, but as a statement of fact. Simple as that. He smiled.

“Jeff?”

“Right here, Clarence.”

 

Police had inspected the crime scene almost two months ago, so the blond had long since been allowed back into his house; this was the first time Jeff had the privilege of visiting himself.

Everything was very neat, quite unlike how Clarence had conducted himself previously; the reasons behind the cleanliness were obvious, however.

The other apologized upfront for a lack of variety in beverages, stating that he couldn’t trust himself to grab the correct container or additive when he made his own, but very proudly handed Jeff a cup of water.

He accepted it and put it aside, preoccupied with his inspection of the house. The living room was largely clear, decorated only with an armchair and a loveseat, and a single small table between them.

There were no bookshelves, no pictures, no decorations or furnishings that made a home seem more _homey_. The curtains were light and airy, however, and framed a large and clean window.

Likewise, the rest of the rooms he saw were clear and clean, probably to maximize ease of movement.

“What do you do in your free time?” Jeff blurted out. He covered his mouth, but couldn’t bring himself to regret asking.

Clarence cocked his head at him, “I read, sometimes. I’ve got audiobooks I can play when I’m too tired to get the book itself. I go out for walks with Sumo–” the dog chose then to trot in from the kitchen, “or I go by myself. I go to dinner with Mom and Chad every Tuesday. Why?”

He struggled to come up with an appropriate answer, gave up, and instead asked, “Want to get something to eat?”

 

Eventually the police tracked down the perpetrator and the date for the trial was set. Officially, Jeff wasn’t supposed to be in the courtroom as he knew Clarence personally, was not a part of his council, was not a family member, and the trial was closed to the public. Plus he was scheduled to be working when Brahms was supposed to be presenting his argument to the court.

In other words, there was no chance he would be there.

But the man had bitten his lip until the scars bled and asked if Jeff would be there. As moral support.

How was he supposed to say no?

Mr. Nelson had been surprisingly considerate with his request, even promising to keep an eye on the trial so Jeff could have those specific dates off from work.

He suspected the old man had something up his sleeve, some kind of ulterior motive, but no real proof. It was unsettling but nothing he could worry himself over, not when every spare scrap of his attention was on the proceedings.

 

Unfortunately, the judicial process tended to be slow and dragging when it came to the execution of justice, so despite beginning in the height of summer the jury was not asked to retreat for deliberation until winter had swung into the state.

Of course, in that time, Jeff had become reacquainted with Mr. Caswell and Mrs. Wendell, who had since changed her name to reflect the change in her marital status. In addition, the two of them and Clarence had somehow determined that Jeff was an expert in the proceedings of law and thus directed all of their questions at him.

Brahms, despite the initial insult he had derived from the pair’s choice in preference, actually _encouraged_ their misguided choice once he realized that he would have more time to prepare a strategy and counter-strategy if his clients weren’t distracting him with questions.

Not that Jeff didn’t appreciate the attention, but in all honesty it was a bit much to handle, especially when he remembered how he and Clarence had been separated and interaction between them had been swiftly snuffed out. To the latter, it hadn’t been a cessation of friendship, but more comparable to a short family vacation where he didn’t see his friend for a week and they were back in time for school.

They hadn’t spoken in nearly twelve years and Clarence had picked up where they had left off, albeit with some baggage. Jeff, on the other hand, couldn’t.

He tried and tried, but it was as though he was driving without any brakes. He lost himself in the camaraderie, but when he remembered how long it had been, or Clarence’s blindness, or _Sumo_ , he was throwing the wheel and hoping the vehicle didn’t flip over and crush him in his panic.

No one else seemed to notice, either, and that was as disconcerting as his recollection. Maybe, to them, it was as though he had been gone only a few days or a week at most. Like they had always expected him to come back.

The thought warmed him more than it should have.

 

On December twentieth, the jury reached their verdict. The foreperson, a severe-looking woman with sharp features, read the decision aloud for the court to hear.

“On the charge of criminal trespass in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant Ivan Barnes guilty. On the charge of aggravated assault, we find the defendant guilty. On the charge of robbery, we find Ivan Barnes guilty.”

Mr. Caswell hissed out a congratulatory “ _Yes_ ,” on Jeff’s right, while his wife reached past the wooden bar separating her from her son and hugged him around his neck. Jeff caught sight of a smile as he held her hand, but when he turned his head to the right and said “Thank you,” the paralegal wasn’t sure if he was being thanked or if it was directed toward Brahms.

Up at the bench the judge called for order; once peace was restored, he declared the defendant’s sentencing – adding up to nearly fourteen years of jail time, unless Jeff’s basic math skills had suddenly and inexplicably become rusty – and dismissed the jurors and council for their service.

Clarence pried himself free of his mother’s iron grip and smiled at Jeff. Tried to, really, and though his gaze was hovering somewhere his left shoulder, well, it was the thought that counted, wasn’t it?

Jeff hadn’t expected Clarence to suddenly throw himself at him over the bar, much as his mother had done, and hug him tightly. It wasn’t a clean maneuver by any means; one hand clipped his shoulder and they knocked heads before settling into a more proper embrace.

Over the sounds of the court clearing and the two Caswells discussing a celebratory meal and attempting to convince Brahms to attend, Jeff strained to hear Clarence whisper, “Don’t leave?”

It was a question.

The fact that the exuberant man had his doubts as to Jeff’s loyalty left a lead ball of shame weighing him down from the inside. His fears were entirely justified, as well.

But like a hollow chocolate rabbit, sometimes surprises could be found hidden inside a disappointment, though this was far better than candied eggs or any other childish treat.

Jeff circled his arms around his childhood friend and hugged him back, just as tightly. He felt the exuberant man relax at the touch.

“Never again,” he said, and he meant it.


End file.
